Jaygo

I really like this framework. I do the same type of thing by putting my long termers in taxable accounts so i'm less likely to sell to early. My riskiest stuff goes in the rrsp as I might as well take the gov down with me. The RRSP also holds dividend paying US equities. My TFSA is full of the middle ground made up mostly of Canadian equities and reits. If I see a company where i want to hold for a long time and but am still sorting out the valuation its a taxable account thing. If i get a loss over a few years I can bank the loss and buy back lower for the long term. It doesn't always work as i sold SSD, GGG and builders first Source seemingly too early. Maybe i need a new account where i forget the password.

lol. I saw a boat last summer named Bre xtravagance thought it was awesome. One guy made out good at least.

Thanks for posting this, really interesting guy. I have a small investment in Mako as my only gold miner exposure. Rare to see a seemingly competent and good communicator running a mine. Akiba is pretty forward with the operations and that is what i like to see. Keep the investors in the know. I am a gold as money guy myself but see the benefit in gold bars and less so in mining as the two are not the same. A company that produces gold is like a company that makes anything else. Gold as a physical holding of value is more similar to real estate or scrap metal sitting in the back yard. In my mind it will simply inverse the fall in purchasing power in our currencies plus a bit for sunk energy. If real inflation is 5% over 100 years id expect gold to be a similar return plus what ever the energy is required to extract it from the ground. I would love to see the webinar you mentioned as i guess i missed it.

No split for me. I just wish they would get down to 1 million shares so I could do some easy math lol. My math skills are even worse than our friend gfp Its certainly is not holding back csu or autozone or the brk. A shares so who cares about per share price. The b shares will likely be over 1000 in ten years, are we going to split again there?

I was replying to ValueArbs comment of Bezos girlfriend. I referring to breast size of wives or girlfriends as the true measure of wealth but i'm immature, sorry.

^^^ Ah yes, the true measure of wealth.

I totally agree. I dont expect tons of unemployment just changes in employment, probably a lot more standing around. I do expect that Capital will do very well as the owners of the machines and tech. I think the working man will feel hard done by because there will be considerable shifts in labour and they may struggle to keep up. Long term we will all benefit and our living standards are likely to be improved but as you should well know we dont see our lives getting better or worse, what we do is compare what we have to our contemporaries. I am richer than Jacob the rich of the 15th century because of advancements I had no part in but i'm poorer than Jeff Bezos therefor i'm am relatively poor. This relative lifestyle vs the owners of Capital is likely to widen even if everyone's lifestyle actually improves.

I'm sure the Chinese are plenty inventive and innovative but i would imagine most would try and get to more open societies in Asia or elsewhere before unveiling their IP. Having the fear of pissing off the CCP must push away a lot of their best and brightest. And yes the letter has lots of humour, some of it lands and some of it doesn't but he certainly tries.

The China section is mind boggling. I have no clue how it all plays out but a halving of population in 50 years is certainly going to cause some havoc. My e it works out like for the Japanese or maybe it doesn’t. I really enjoyed the letter this year. The detail on brk is so valuable to me, you can really get a grasp of the business and potential valuation.

This is basically Canadians and our housing market too. How many bought just to try and keep up. If your job is shit you have to find some other way to make money. Tough times

I think we are in the very early days of this. Candle wick straitening may be tough because of dexterity but the amount of real world productivity improvements are pretty vast. The loom was not perfect at first and the luddites made a mockery of it until the French loom arrived and they realized its efficiency so they tried to burn them down to save their jobs. Take a super rudimentary thing like splitting firewood. The average guy could split a face cord and feel good about himself in one or two hrs with already cut up trees. A super simple and very inexpensive firewood processer can cut to exact length and split about 3 cords or 15 times that amount each hour. so spend 6 grand and 15x your speed safer with better quality. Sure this example is really off the beaten path but if our entire ecosystem sees productivity improvements we will have a major jump in freed labour. Ive been researching building supply companies and the housing industry is ripe for robotics in the supply and finishing side. With Fanuc robotics and the touches of a Florida tech company Builders First Source is providing entirely pre-cut house framing packages that are accurate within 1/8 of an inch using nothing but robotic saws and the architectural drawings. This project is in its infancy and only available in Florida but they discuss it in their investor day so i'm thinking its working. Another one. The roadway reflective cats eyes are now starting to be installed at roughly 18 miles per hr by an automated epoxy and robotic stamp on a truck. This process takes roughly 2-3 hours per mile today with the most widely used practice. Our current way of doing most things is changing fast and smart machines combined with AI will be truly revolutionary. Now i'm pretty sure that the spoils of this is going to fall to corporate America and Capital in general. He who owns the machines... The working man better get ready to stand around and watch robots, maybe cigarettes will make a comeback just out of boredom.

I’m guessing Viking was wondering if we are going to become rich off of Fairfax. Is buying ffh today like buying brk in the 70’s. I honestly can’t say, if the structure is similar it may work out but I think WB has an edge on capital allocation that is almost unrepeatable for others. I really hope for all of our sakes ffh performs as well, so 20 years from now I could say I was part of that great run. I don’t feel as comfortable with ffh like I do with brk but that is some very biased thinking with hindsight. I have purposely put my long term holds into my taxable accounts so I’m less likely to trade and that group now sits with 78 shares of Fairfax. Here’s hoping we all do well.

I'm 39 now, my first glimpse in to BRK was as a 11 or 12 year old roughly, my Uncle Gerry would wax on about Ted turner and Warren Buffett and all the other big money guys down in America. You want to get rich move to Texas he would always tell me. He was an in demand hot work mason who would travel around North America bricking up active refractories and boilers. As far as I know he never bought a single share of anything, he was always afraid of the big collapse or the next scam. Anyway Uncle Gerry bought me a book about WB (Buffettology) when I was about 18. A shares were probably in the 50-70k range. I could barely understand it and didn't buy any shares until about 2014. I didn't get rich because I didn't know much then and probably still dont know much now. I, like my Uncle Gerry am always afraid of the next big collapse but to a lesser extent than him so I take profits too early or go to safety and quality when the opposite is probably warranted.

Well you could certainly give some examples.

I think advances in robotics will be just as important in productivity as AI will be. I have some machines that cost under 25k that now reduce my needed workforce by 1-2 people per day. Let’s call it 1 per day to be on the safe side. The kicker is that the machine is still producing the same outcome as before but with one man vs 2 or 3. these are still human controlled machines but with robotic or computerized features that really boost the bottom line. I am pretty sad about our society lately but productivity is a ramping up and to the right imo.

I didn't find his tone to be overly dour. Perhaps just cautious and a bit nostalgic for the days of KO and AMEX, higher returns and possibly fewer headaches. Moreso I think he is making a statement on the juxtaposition of men and women working their asses off in freezing weather, scraping bodies off the tracks only to be manipulated by the Washington ( politicians, ESG dicks, WS ) elite with a stroke of a pen from the comfort of a taxpayer funded office. I think the same goes for the capital and ingenuity of BHE and the like. If you want to unfairly punish the utility sector for political points enjoy sitting in the the dark, we will take our new capital elsewhere. The utility is mandated to provide power even in the most remote places but when storms, or fires hit these hard to service remote places the utility is on the hook for damages. People bitch when the power is out, bitch when the bill comes due and now litigate for freak accidents in areas where power lines probably shouldn't have been in the first place.

Great letter. The part about the utilities and their troubles further confirms my fears we are living in an atlas shrugged era where the builders and most productive of society are drowned by the egotistic, power hungry and overly “moralistic” assholes who while claiming to care for the masses will degrade all of our lives and livelihoods by their “popular” decisions. rant over, I love WB and brk.

Does brk break down the revenue or are you getting the numbers from another source?

I was doing some work on Terravest last night and was thinking that another line that would fit was rail tank cars. So a quick market search puts Union tank car company as the big dog in the industry. Well that’s a Marmon subsidiary. They build, repair, certify and own/ lease hundreds of thousand of tank cars. so I started a little digging on marmon and am just amazed at that company. They have businesses in everything, tons I didn’t know I know and see in life. The filters for my water softener are filtrex, the work cloves I buy from Lowe’s, the special rubber coated screws I used on my shop roof are atlas, a marmon company. my point is that if Marmon alone is a treasure trove of businesses what is the rest of Berkshire? We see the numbers at quarters end but are we really getting the whole story here. I believe that the book value of brk is now completely useless and this thing would be worth multiples if these businesses were separated. what would Marmon be worth alone if little Terravest is now at one billion. Im not saying a breakup is needed or warranted but simply that brk is a value stock compared to the market as a whole.

Agree, I think the real economy warrants around 2.5 to 3 max. Businesses and individuals should be able to borrow for productive needs without the fed worrying about asset prices inflating. Maybe if we got rid of deductibility of interest for financial assets it may limit a bubble in the markets but allow for a productive economy to borrow. I’m seeing large equipment loans at ten plus percent. If that’s the case for long the productivity of the economy will suffer imo

This seems nefarious and it is definitely strange. Is someone at Morningstar on the take?

Ok, toro company would be really close here too. I’m going off my iPhone stock list without cheating. It’s fun.

Is that Starbucks?

Key West Painkillers from a place called the tipsy rooster. Amazing drink, definitely going to enter the Christmas time drink repertoire. it’s cinnamon infused rum with coconut and pineapple plus some other stuff. Nutmeg on top. Lots of ice. Tastes like heaven.

Were down in Key West Florida. Its absolutely amazing, tropical and friendly. This place really shows how incredible the USA is. Top Geography of any country in the world by far in its diversity. The road down is a fun drive too. Ive never met so many active elderly with a buzz lol. Id say its not exactly the best place for kids but mine are doing just fine so far.